Drinkin' Like A Dartmouth Man

By Michael J. Ellis | Friday, February 10, 2006

Winter Carnival is upon us, and for many Dartmouth students, Carnival is a weekend for skiing, skating, and snow sculpting. As you can read in Alana Finley’s history of Carnival on the opposite page, the holiday initially began as purely hibernal celebration but soon evolved into its current and slightly more degenerate form. The transformation did not take long—the story of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s visit to the 1939 Winter Carnival has since become legendary and emblematic of the entire holiday. Fitzgerald, hired to write the screenplay of the thoroughly mediocre film Winter Carnival , became so embarrassingly inebriated that he was fired in front of the Hanover Inn. Even if building a snow sculpture in front of a fraternity house, going to the hockey game, or jumping into Occom Pond are the activities that make Winter Carnival quintessentially winter, drinking is what makes this weekend “the Mardi Gras of the North.”

But while we engage in our Dionysian revelry here, we must remind ourselves that we are relatively privileged in our ability to do so. Heinous as Dartmouth’s administrators may be when they actively seek to destroy meaningful traditions or refashion the College to better match their utopian social engineering scheme, they’re nothing in comparison to the folks in charge at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. As Kathleen Carmody reports on page seven, the archons at UMass have implemented a series of alcohol policy reforms that would put Draco to shame. Not only are upperclass students prohibited from possessing more than twelve bottles of beer, two bottles of wine, or one bottle of spirits, but they are also forbidden to host more than ten students in their room, and underclassmen cannot posses so much as empty alcohol containers. The policy does beg the question, though, if ten students who consume more than twelve beers—total—is sufficient to pose a hazard to the health of most UMass students. Maybe the UMass administrators will next ban their students from spinning around until they become dizzy or drinking too much coffee. After all, those caffeine headaches can be pretty nasty.

At the same time, however, it is easy to understand the motivations of the UMass administrators—in today’s litigious culture, they have to protect themselves somehow from over-zealous trial lawyers. In this light, the UMass policy is an intelligent move, since at least the school will be shielded from negligence lawsuits. But as volumes of research, most recently by Dartmouth’s own Prof. Hoyt Alverson [see TDR 11/4/2005], have shown, proscriptions like UMass-Amherst’s only serve to drive drinking underground. Instead of drinking alcohol in their dorm rooms, where at least there are residential advisors and campus security to call in if a party goes awry, students’ drinking will relocate to off-campus houses and apartments. Like it or not, alcohol is a part of the collegiate culture.

Administrators at Dartmouth and other colleges are undoubtedly watching UMass and other schools with severe alcohol policies—many of which were adopted after a spate of drinking deaths in 2004—to see what results transpire. It is no secret that Parkhurst has wanted to curb students’ drinking for years, but UMass is hardly the example for them follow. The real problem with Dartmouth’s drinking is not that alcohol is too easily obtained by freshmen, that too much pong is played in grimy basements, or that too many romantic liaisons begin with a blacked-out hook-up; instead, the problem is that the student drinking culture lacks personal responsibility or community standards. Fifty years ago, for instance, fraternities didn’t resemble trash heaps and vomiting was considered a sign of emasculation, not virility. Greek life was, in a way, self-regulating: the administration intervened when necessary, but it did so by calling fraternity presidents into John Sloan Dickey’s office and bluntly informing them that their behavior was unacceptable. The doctrine of in loco parentis is in some ways still in effect, but instead of acting as stern and forceful father, the administration has become an indulgent mother. Treat undergraduates like children, and it should not be surprising that they will act like them.

So perhaps the real fix for Dartmouth’s drinking culture is to get the administration out of the business of social engineering and creating traditions (which, I kid you not, is one of Collis Commissar Linda Kennedy’s official duties) and back to fostering a positive drinking culture. Loosen the rules governing alcohol consumption, but strengthen their enforcement. The recent changes to the Social Event Management Procedures (SEMP) and the laxer rules on possessing kegs are a step in the right direction, but the rash of petty disciplinary action this term against fraternities caught hiding kegs shows that more needs to be done. In many ways, it would be far more pragmatic for the administration to stop attempting to regulate the amount of beer fraternities are allowed to posses and instead start keeping fanatical state liquor control agents away from Webster Avenue.

Similarly, re-recognizing Zeta Psi would go a long way towards showing the administration’s sincerity about promoting a healthy Greek culture. Today’s Zete brothers were not even on campus for the notorious Zetemouth incident, and formally bringing the house back into the Greek system would bring Zete’s drinking back into the light, where it could be more safely monitored. The presence of a rogue fraternity on campus makes a laughingstock of the alcohol management rules more than any hidden stash of kegs ever could.

So go forth, Dartmouth, and enjoy Winter Carnival in the best Fitzgeraldian style. But as you do so, remember that we may be only one slip-up away from UMass-like restrictions (see Oklahoma, University of). Practicing personal responsibility may be our only hope of retaining the quintessence of Dartmouth’s social culture.

Drinkin' Like A Dartmouth Man

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